1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data processing apparatus, a preflight checking method, and a computer program. More particularly, the invention is suitable when it is used to check a job before the job is output.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an electrophotographic printer called a POD (Print On Demand) apparatus, a printing including a variable data portion called a variable data printing is used as a killer application. The variable data printing is effective to formation of direct mail or the like having a high effect. A PPML (Personalized Print Markup Language) has been known as a language which can describe (define) multimedia contents by a variable data format. The PPML is a language for a digital printing system using an XML (eXtensible Markup Language) as a base. The PPML is an open language proposed from PODi as an architecture for realizing the variable data printing.
In the printing industry, in order to avoid a printing failure, before the printing is actually started, a process of a step called a preflight for checking whether or not a print job is proper (checking, for example, a font and an image) is executed. In such a service that a manuscript of a document based on data is received from the user and printed, the operator performs the preflight check to the received document by using a print system. As a result of the preflight check, if it is determined that there is no problem in the printing of the document, the document is printed.
More specifically describing, the preflight check is such a check that in order to prevent such a situation that after the printing was actually started, the operation is interrupted because of the absence of necessary resources or the like, the contents of the document are checked prior to executing the actual printing. Items regarding the resources necessary to print the document are mainly included in check items in the related art in the preflight check. Specifically speaking, items such as type of font included in the document, the presence or absence of embedding of the font, name of a color profile, and resolution of image data are included.
With respect to a group of check items designated by the operator, the document as a check target is checked. When a check result is reported, information showing whether or not any problem has been found out is shown every check item. Further, a page number, an object name, and a location on an actual print image in which the problem has been found out are shown as detailed information of the check result.
The preflight in the variable data printing has already been proposed. In the Official Gazette of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-316873, a document which is common among records is used as a base and the preflight check is performed to a print job in which variable data is inserted to a fixed container frame. Specifically speaking, whether or not the variable data overflows from the container frame is checked.
However, if the result of the preflight is reported in a form similar to that of the ordinary printing even in the variable data printing, there is a risk that information showing whether the found-out problem is a problem of a master portion which is common among the records or a problem of the variable portion cannot be reported to the operator in an easy-understanding form. Generally, although the data in the master portion and the data in the variable portion have been stored at different locations, those data are synthesized and printed. If “the page number, the object name, and the location on the actual print image” in which the problem found out by the preflight check has occurred are merely displayed, the operator cannot easily discriminate that the problem should be solved by confirming which one of the master portion and the variable portion.
The invention is made in consideration of such a problem and it is an object of the invention to enable a result of a preflight check of a job including variable data to be reported easier than that in the related art.